The Gulf Conspiracy Read Online Free PDF Page B

they ascribe to having taken part in the conflict,' said the DOH man.
    ‘ And in real numbers?’
    ‘ Something in the order of quarter of a million, Prime Minister.’
    ‘ I take it we are talking in terms of all the allied forces?’
    ‘ Yes sir.’
    ‘ And deaths?’
    ‘ Ten, perhaps as many as twelve thousand.’
    There was a long silence before the PM said softly, ‘That many?’
    ‘ With respect, Prime Minister,’ said the Defence Minister, ‘Hysteria has played no small part in inflating these figures. Any tommy sniffing a hint of compensation has been turning up at his GP looking for a ticket to easy street.’
    ‘ And the dead? Are they malingering too?’
    ‘ As you yourself pointed out, it has been six years since the war. A lot of things can happen in six years to all of us and people do tend to die for a whole variety of reasons. It has always been quite clear that the huge range of symptoms appearing on medical reports must preclude any one single cause as being responsible for illness among veterans.’
    ‘ And yet the veterans seem more adamant than ever,’ said the PM. ‘I’ve been looking through submissions from their various associations and they have become an organised and articulate lobby.’
    ‘ The facts remain the same,’ insisted the Defence Minister.
    ‘ I need hardly remind you that we are only months away from an election,’ said the PM. ‘Put bluntly, on top of everything else, we cannot afford to be seen fighting the sick.’
    ‘ Would the Treasury consider softening its attitude on compensation perhaps?’ suggested a man from the policy unit.
    The Department of Health man shook his head and said, ‘Apart from the sheer numbers involved, we would need some method of appraising the condition, some guidelines as to how we decide whether or not symptoms could be ascribed to the war. You don’t need to be clairvoyant to see that this would be an enormous stumbling block which would in turn lead to a sense of injustice in those denied and the consequent setting up of appeals panels and so on and so forth. It has all the makings of a bureaucratic nightmare, if I may say so.’
    ‘ Of course it has. It’s an absolute non-starter,’ said the Defence Minister. ‘Frankly, I don’t think the Press will be too hard on us over this issue simply because of the enormous range of illnesses. Even a fool can see that they can’t all be right.’
    ‘ So you would suggest that we do nothing and ride out the storm, should it come to it?’ asked the PM.
    ‘ I honestly don’t think that it will,’ said the Defence Minister. ‘The public have grown bored with it.’
    ‘ One odd thing that struck me as I was reading through the submissions from the veterans,’ said the PM. ‘was an assertion by some that their condition was infectious. They claimed that their wives and children were being affected. It sounded quite extraordinary.’
    ‘ Ridiculous,’ said the Defence Minister. ‘Only goes to prove what I’ve been saying all along. Every time an ex-squaddie wakes up with a hangover it’s down to service in the Gulf War.’
    ‘ What sort of illness were they talking about, Prime Minister?’ asked the policy unit man.
    ‘ It was all a bit vague,’ replied the PM. ‘Chronic fatigue, increased susceptibility to colds and flu, that sort of thing.’
    ‘ God in heaven,’ snorted the Defence Minister, ‘That’s all we need, infectious yuppie flu!’
    ‘ Does sound a bit implausible, I must say,’ said the PM.
    ‘ Stuff and nonsense,’ said the Defence Minister. ‘There is one thing we might try however, if you think that these veterans’ associations might actually succeed in making this an election issue. We could leak it to the papers that Saddam did actually use chemical and biological weapons in the conflict.’
    ‘ A number of them have already tried running with that story over the years,’ said the PM. ‘One paper in particular has taken particular delight in